New studies reveal that a group of paleontologists discovered matching dinosaur footprints separated by nearly 3,700 miles apart on two continents.
According to the study published by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, these matching footprints are found in modern-day Brazil, present in South America, and Cameroon in Africa.
These footprints are reportedly from the Early Cretaceous Epoch, a period that started almost 145 million years ago and concluded some 100.5 million years ago.
Researchers studied 260 different dinosaur footprints in various parts of the world and found two same footprints separated by almost 3,700 miles. They studied its age, shape, and other geological features in the context of the tectonic plate movements, which helped them reach a conclusion.
Louis Jacobs, a paleontologist at the Southern Methodist University who also led the study, explained the possibility of finding matching footprints separated by such majestic distances from each other.
Jacobs stated that the discovery can be explained by the concept of plate tectonics and the ancient configuration of Earth’s landmasses. During the Early Cretaceous period, South America and Africa were part of the supercontinent Gondwana, which had previously split from the even larger landmass of Pangea.
As Gondwana began to break apart around 140 million years ago, South America and Africa gradually drifted away from each other and formed the South Atlantic Ocean. Before this separation, Jacobs continued, there was a narrow land bridge between what is now northeastern Brazil and the coast of Cameroon, which allowed dinosaurs to migrate across the region and leave footprints in the mud and silt present along water bodies. These footprints are now preserved in sedimentary rocks on both continents and provide evidence of this historical connection due to similarity in age, shape, and geological context.
Researchers further revealed that most footprints under observation belonged to three-toed species of carnivorous dinosaurs.
Jacobs explained that plants served as the primary food source for herbivores, which in turn sustained the entire food chain. The muddy sediments deposited by ancient rivers and lakes captured dinosaur tracks, which provide evidence that these river valleys offered pathways for various forms of life to migrate to different continents in Early Cretaceous times.
The drifting of continents is a complex phenomenon, sometimes driven by factors that are perhaps still unknown to modern-day civilization.
The process known as continental drift is supported by the concept of plate tectonics, which explains how Earth’s lithosphere is categorized into large plates floating on the semi-fluid called asthenosphere. This movement majorly happens due to mantle convection, where heat from the Earth’s core creates circulating currents that push and pull the plates. This process leads to seafloor spreading at mid-ocean ridges, where new crust forms and drives the plates apart, and slab pulls at subduction zones, where one plate is forced beneath another.
Over millions of years, these forces have caused supercontinents like Pangea to break apart, resulting in the current arrangement of continents.
